Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Let's Watch This Rare Video of a Jaguar Roaming the Santa Rita Mountains

The only wild jaguar in the U.S. lives in the Santa Rita Mountains outside Tucson. We've been waiting to see live footage of him, and it's our lucky day today: environmental groups have released a rare video of the jaguar, named El Jefe, roaming the Santa Ritas.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Conservation CATalyst, a former program within the UA, have been collaborating in a video project to monitor the endangered jaguar and ocelot in the southeastern Arizona mountain range. Chris Bugbee, a biologist with Conservation CATalyst, has collected data on the jaguar for the past three years, a Center for Biological Diversity press release says.

El Jefe has been often photographed by remote sensor cameras in the Santa Ritas over the past few years. But this is the first-ever publicly released video of him.

He is the only verified jaguar in the country, since another, known as Macho B, was euthanized in March 2009. Environmental groups are fighting hard for the species preservation, especially as the Rosemont Copper open-pit mine continues to loom over the Santa Ritas.

The mile-wide open pit and 800-foot-high piles of toxic mine waste would permanently destroy thousands of acres of occupied, federally protected jaguar habitat where this jaguar lives.

“The Rosemont Mine would destroy El Jefe’s home and severely hamstring recovery of jaguars in the United States,” said a prepared statement from Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “At ground zero for the mine is the intersection of three major wildlife corridors that are essential for jaguars moving back into the U.S. to reclaim lost territory. The Santa Rita Mountains are critically important to jaguar recovery in this country, and they must be protected.”
Watch the footage:

Conservation CATalyst and the Center for Biological Diversity released new video today of the only known wild jaguar currently in the United States.Captured on remote sensor cameras in the Santa Rita Mountains just outside of Tucson, the dramatic footage provides a glimpse of the secretive life of one of nature’s most majestic and charismatic creatures. This is the first-ever publicly released video of the #jaguar, recently named 'El Jefe' by Tucson students, and it comes at a critical point in this cat’s conservation. Learn more here: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2016/jaguar-02-03-2016.html